


So how come I feel so lonely when you’re up getting down?

by lanyon



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, Stripper AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 13:44:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/573902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers, architect, goes to a strip club under duress. He doesn't expect to see a familiar face on stage. (Tony Stark's resultant and incessant teasing is, however, entirely expected.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	So how come I feel so lonely when you’re up getting down?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ellievolia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellievolia/gifts).



> \+ Once upon a time, Ellie and I started writing a story about strippers. This is not that story, precisely.  
> +Title from _I Don't Feel Like Dancin'_ by the incomparable Scissor Sisters.  
>  +This is the first in a few rather late birthday stories I've been meaning to write. ♥ Happy birthday, Ellie.

It's not that Steve is in the closet. It's more that there is no closet. His life is the gay Matrix, according to Tony, and, apparently, Tony would know. It doesn’t matter how often Steve murmurs that he’s not gay (which is kind of a lie but Tony thinks Steve can’t lie so it’s an elaborate triple bluff of the best kind) because Tony is sure that all Steve needs is the love of a good man. 

It could be that Tony’s not wrong but Steve hates to validate Tony’s ego. 

.

“The strippers,” says Tony. “They’re all men.”

Phil says, “you never asked.”

“You guys invited me to ladies’ night?” Tony sits back in his seat and folds his arms. “No, I ain’t even mad.” He looks around. “I do need champagne, though.” 

Clicking fingers at Natasha Romanov, proprietress of the Red Room, is a sure fire way to get the worst Chinese burn this side of grade school. She serves amazing champagne, though, which dulls the pain.

.

It’s Maria Hill’s bachelorette. She’s finally making an honest man of Nick Fury. She invited Phil Coulson. He’s, like, the ambassador from the groom’s side, Steve thinks, or maybe a spy, sent to see how the other half lives. Who knows? Lawyers are a strange bunch and Steve’s not sure why Tony keeps so many around. (Actually, that’s untrue; between the filing of endless patents and his aversion to diplomacy, Tony needs all the help he can get.)

“Think we can pay for Coulson to have a private lap dance with one of these strapping young chaps?” asks Tony. His eyes are wide and glinting. “It might help him unwind.”  

Steve can’t help the reproachful tone that creeps into his voice. “Tony, don’t be unkind. Can’t we just enjoy ourselves for once?”

“Yes, _Dad_ ,” says Tony, which is pretty much the worst insult of which he can conceive. “Let’s sit back and enjoy the male strippers like a normal family.”

Steve rolls his eyes and then the lights go down. The curtain twitches and _Reveille_ sounds out. Natasha’s accent is heavier than usual; she must be playing it up for the crowd. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage one of our very favourite performers. If nothing else, he’ll make a holy show of himself - fresh from a tour in Afghanistan, it’s Private Barnes.”

Steve startles a little at the name. He freezes, his champagne flute halfway to his lips when the spotlight shines on a very handsome young man (and Tony would break his shit laughing if he knew that even Steve’s inner monologue sounded like that of an octogenarian _woman_ but the dancer, the _stripper_ is very handsome and, yes, strapping is the word. Stripping too, apparently).

. 

There’s the clicking of fingers in front of his eyes and Tony’s voice, strident against the low hum of chatter and music before the next act.

“Seriously, we lost him. I’m calling it.”

.

“Barnes, you gotta groupie.”  

Steve cringes, shrinking into his leather jacket and the bouncer gives him a wide grin. He can hear voices from behind the dressing room door, rising and bursting into machine gun laughter. 

“Thanks, Toro -” And there he is. Here he is. Oh god.

“Steve?” He swallows hard and licks his lower lip, the way he did when they were kids. “Steve Rogers?”

Steve can only nod.

“Jesus, _Steve_ , you filled out _nice_ -”

“Bucky,” is all Steve can think to say. 

.

“You’re an architect?”  

“Yeah, go figure.” Steve drags his fingers down Bucky’s abs. “And you’re a stripper?”

“Mm, go figure.”

“I’d heard you’d joined the army?”

  “I had.” Bucky tugs at Steve so that he’s stretched out on top of him. Steve grins down at him, and Bucky’s hips undulate and Steve can’t remember what he was going to say. 

.

“So, funny story,” says Tony. It’s usually a precursor to some embarrassing event that happened over the weekend, involving Tony, any number of dignitaries and at least one unscheduled explosion (two, if Bruce is there). 

Steve looks up from Tony’s latest set of blueprints, which are baffling in their complete disavowal of anything relating to logic or realism (but that’s why they have Bruce on staff; an actual physicist to work with Tony, or to rein him in).

“Tony, have you heard of the law of gravity?”  

“Dad always said you gotta treat the laws of physics like they were made to be broken.” Tony sits at the head of the conference table and then puts his feet on top of the blueprints. “But less about physics and more about you. You sly dog.”  

Steve can feel the back of his neck starting to heat up. 

“You bounder. You _cad_.”

The blush creeps around to his cheeks.

“You rogue.”

Steve runs his hand through his hair.

“I’d never have - I mean, I’m kinda proud. Can I take some of the credit for Steve Rogers going home with jailbait stripper?”

Steve splutters. “ _Tony_ , he’s only four years younger than me.”

  “That’s what he said.” Tony’s crowing now. 

.

Steve lowers his mouth to Bucky’s collarbone. He sucks lightly and Bucky wriggles under him. 

“So, I got discharged, dishonourably,” says Bucky.

Steve raises his head. He’s horrified. It must show on his face because Bucky starts laughing. “Jeez, Bucky, why? Was it because-?”

  “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?” Bucky’s nose honest-to-God twitches, like he’s holding back more laughter. “Chill, I wasn’t telling anyone and they sure as fuck weren’t asking.”

“Then - then why?”

  “Oh, I kicked the shit out of my CO ‘cause he was kicking the shit out of a kid who Told without being Asked. Those were some fun times, man.”

Steve frowns. “But - you were protecting -”

“Steve. Oh _Steve_. Never fucking change.” 

Steve nips at Bucky’s collarbone and Bucky shouts out. “ _Fuck_. Ow. Okay, okay. I was never that good at following orders. I was pretty fucking ace at shooting, though, and at bending over and, that night, I just fucking snapped-” He moves his hands to cup Steve’s cheeks and he kisses Steve’s mouth softly. “So I took it. I left and I got a new fucking tattoo and Nat hired me on the spot. Strippers for socialism unite!”  

Steve traces the red star over Bucky’s left deltoid. “Trust you to get a goddamned communist symbol.”  

“I was acting out, Rogers, like I used to in Mrs Conlon's math class. You should see the hammer and sickle on my butt.”

  Steve’s mouth drops open but then he grins, fiendishly. “I’m on pretty intimate terms with your butt, pal, and there’s no goddamned tattoo there.” 

“Should I get one?” asks Bucky, trailing his fingers down Steve’s spine. He cups one of Steve’s asscheeks. “Stars and stripes, maybe?”

“Mmfgh,” says Steve and he flips Bucky onto his front, and trails wayward kisses down to the small of Bucky’s back. “God bless America.”

. 

“I feel hard done by,” announces Tony.

“Oh god,” says Bruce, in that mild way of his. “Billionaire inventor feels sorry for himself. Call Fox News.”

  “Pfff, Fox hates me. But that’s so not the point.” Tony points at Phil, who’s sitting at the far end of the conference table, frowning at his phone. “What I want to know is why everyone else who went to Maria Hill’s bachelorette got a party favour and I didn’t?”

  “What?” Steve looks up from the coffee machine which is not as foolproof as its manufacturers (Stark Industries) would have one believe.

  “Word on the street is that my favourite attorney’s fucking one of Romanov’s boys, too.”

“So, you’re saying,” says Bruce, slowly. “That you’re jealous because you’re not sleeping with a stripper?” He pauses. “Despite the fact that there was an expose last weekend about that stripper in Reno who says you-”

  “Bruuuuuuce,” says Tony. “You are not allowed bring logic and reason into this room. Leave it at the door.” 

“Then I genuinely have no idea why I’m here,” says Bruce, with a wide smile. “Come on, Steve, let me help you with the coffee.”

.

“So, this is embarrassing,” says Bucky, throwing himself down on the bed next to Steve. 

Steve can’t help but notice that Bucky does not have a condom with him. 

“I got to the bathroom and my motherfucking roommate was there. One condom, two virile young men.” Bucky shakes his head sadly. “It was messy.”

  “You didn’t get into a fight over the last condom, did you?”

  “What? No. Well. Paper-scissors-rock. He always choose fucking _rock_.”

“And you couldn’t choose paper this time?”

  “Scissors is my _thing_ ,” Bucky says, his mouth curving down into a _moue_ of pure, beautiful petulance. Of course Steve has to kiss it. 

“So Clint has a - a girl? A guy?”

“A guy,” says Bucky, wriggling closer to Steve. “A goddamned lawyer. Fuck, man. The pair of us. Getting all respectable in our old age.”

. 

“The oil must get all over the bedsheets.”

  “James does actually shower before leaving work,” says Steve. He’s not sure how he feels about the fact that his boss and colleagues have seen his boyfriend in varying degrees of undress. “He doesn’t walk around that shiny all the time.”

“Is he that _hairless_ everywhere?” 

Steve hates how red he gets when he’s embarrassed. “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.” 

“What are we talking about?” asks Bruce, as he sits down.

“Barnes’s pubic hair,” says Tony. “Or lack thereof. It's a Schrödinger's cat thing. We value your contribution, Dr Banner.”

“You know, Tony, outsiders think that we must have the most intellectually stimulating conversations when we collaborate,” says Bruce.

 “Can we collaborate, Bruce, please?” asks Tony and he’s actually batting his eyelashes. “It’s what all the cool kids are calling it.”

.

At Nick Fury’s wedding to Maria Hill, the best man, one Phillip Coulson, prudently doesn’t mention his attendance at the bachelorette party.

 Steve’s sitting at a table with Tony and Pepper and Bruce and Betty. Bucky’s on his left, his hand curled around Steve’s thigh, under the table, and Clint is on Bucky’s other side, listening to Phil like he’s the second coming.

“The thing is,” whispers Tony. “I thought it was more common to meet future spouses at weddings. Not at bachelorette parties.”  

“Who said anything about getting married, Stark?” asks Clint. 

Bucky squeezes Steve’s thigh tighter, like an anchor, like a promise. 

When the first dance is over, Tony stands up and takes Pepper’s hand. “Grease me up, I’m going in.” 

The music is swing and Steve can’t dance but it’s okay, because Bucky can’t, either. 

“If there’s no pole, I’ve got no rhythm,” Bucky whispers in his ear. “Relax, babe. I got two left feet and a bouquet to catch. Can’t say I’m not a goddamned prize.”

  .

Pepper takes off her stilettos and catches the bouquet. Tony, to his credit, just shrugs and acts like he’s not delighted at the prospect. 

“If you’re gonna make an honest man out of me, Pep, I gotta give Natasha Romanov a call. I know just the place for your bachelorette.” 


End file.
